Often, major cities deploy thousands of single-space parking meters throughout their jurisdiction. The management of such a deployment is labor intensive. Costs of overhead can be larger than necessary due to the normal inefficiencies in managing large distributed systems.
Wireless parking meters have been devised that enable the parking meter to communicate with enforcement officers to make parking enforcement more efficient, as well as to allow for payment using credit cards. The wireless parking meters may use a protocol such as ZigBee or SSIPCO for the wireless communication. The wireless systems may have disadvantages when used in single space parking meters, which may include, for example, shorter operating times due to increased power consumption, and communication latency due to the communication protocol used.
The wireless single space parking meters may include an antenna for transmitting radio frequency (RF) signals used for the wireless communication. However, the placement of the antenna has not provided efficient transmission of the RF signals, resulting in higher power consumption, lower communication range, or both.